Celebrity Workouts

May 5, 2011

Jessica Alba is arguably one of the best swimsuit models out there. Most recently, you saw her showing off her flat abs in “Little Fockers” and remember her from “The Fantastic Four,” “Sin City,” “Into The Blue” and the “Dark Angel” TV series. At 5’7” and 127 pounds,

April 19, 2011

We instinctively look to celebrities as models of beauty and fitness. Yet, they are far from representative of the general populace. Some celebrities may be born with blessed physiques, but the vast majority of famous individuals are slaves to their fitness trainers with rigorous workouts that combine a wide range of cardiovascular workouts with weightlifting routines.

This double-edged approach prevents the body from finding its comfort zone and hitting that dreaded plateau where it refuses to convert more fat to muscle or define existing muscle. If you want to look like the stars, you’ve got to train like them too – and it isn’t all yoga and swimming.

How does Usher get his abs of steel? In addition to doing no less than 1,000 crunches a day, he also completes what he calls “forty minutes of funk” each day. This involves ten minutes of stretching before and after his workout, using Pilates, yoga, meditation and massage. He then completes 30-minute intervals on a treadmill or a bike, followed by rigorous strength training.

He uses five-minute “super-set” circuits of V-presses, modified lateral raises and snake-like pushups designed to work out every muscle in the core. He skips in place, completes jumping jacks, raises his legs and completes tricep dips.

To buff up to a muscular 210 pounds for his role in Dark Knight, Christian Bale hit the gym hard like Stallone. While he’s a self-professed running nut, it was the power cleans, jump squats, high-intensity Smith Machine bench presses, ricochets and high pulls that really built him up.

The best weightlifting exercises are compound movements that utilize more than one muscle groups – like the squat or the dead-lift, he says. Instead of taking a day off, Christian preferred an active recovery where he swims leisurely or aqua jogs.

Gunnar Peterson is the personal trainer behind the success of Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian. He focuses on putting his clients through loads of cardio, with the idea that continuous movement and blood flow will burn calories and tone bodies.

For Kim, he had her focus on sets of pushups, interrupted by high-intensity, 1-minute cardio intervals of biking, marching or jumping rope. He also highly recommends crunches, super-mans and lower-body workouts like squatting down, while curling a dumbbell overhead to work the core.

To train like Courtney Cox, you’ve got a tough day ahead of you. You’ll begin with a 15-minute upper body toning on resistance machines like her personal favorite – the “vibrating Power Plate.” The next session involves 75 minutes of treadmill intervals with varying intensity, followed by squats and lunges.

Lastly, you’ll do a few more treadmill intervals and finish up with resistance bands doing cross-body biceps curls for a more defined upper body. On other days, Courtney’s been known to do Pilates, run, or take a class called Budokon — a blend of Japanese martial arts, yoga and meditation.